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N – Medical ghostwriting is rife29 September 2009Authors published in the New England Journal of Medicine who responded to a survey presented at the sixth peer review congress reported a 10.9% rate of ghostwriting, according to the New York Times (www.nytimes.com/2009/09/11/business/11ghost.html?_r=4). Six of the top medical journals published many articles in 2008 that were written by ghostwriters. Among authors of 630 articles […]
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N – Most papers find a home29 September 2009Ninety per cent of papers rejected by the New England Journal of Medicine are eventually published elsewhere, showed research presented at the sixth international congress on peer review in Vancouver, according to the BMJ (2009;339:b3777). Researchers identified all papers that the journal rejected in 1995 and 2003 from their databases and searched for them on […]
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B – Equity for Open-Access Journal Publishing27 September 2009Shieber SM. Equity for Open-Access Journal Publishing. PLoS Biol 2009;7(8):e1000165. doi:10.1371/journal.pbio.1000165http://www.plosbiology.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pbio.1000165 Neither readers nor authors would in principle disagree with the open-access approach, i.e. articles freely available online without any access fee. But who should pay for the process? Of course commercial publishers, that have to sustain costs of editing, peer-reviewing, staffing, and marketing, could […]
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N – Company sues paper’s contributor for libel20 September 2009The journal Circulation has printed a correction to a paper on a trial at the centre of a libel trial, the BMJ reports (2009;339:b3659). The correction (Circulation 2009;120:e71-2, doi:10.1161/CIRCULATIONAHA.109.192626) says that a trial of a migraine intervention had “a number of errors and omissions” (Circulation 2008;117:1397-404, doi:10.1161/CIRCULATIONAHA.107.727271). The lawsuit was brought by the manufacturer against […]
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N – Dawkins attacks libel law20 September 2009Richard Dawkins has criticised UK libel law because of the “atmosphere of fear and uncertainty” that it creates for scientists who challenge claims about health products, the Guardian reports. The evolutionary biologist and author said that the law could have “disastrous consequences” for the public interest. He backs reform of the law to provide “a […]
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B – Google Book Search Bibliography15 September 2009Bailey CW, Jr. Google Book Search Bibliography Version 5: 9/14/2009 http://www.digital-scholarship.org/gbsb/gbsb.htm Selected English-language articles and other works useful in understanding Google Book Search. from evolution of Google Book Search and the legal, library, and social issues associated with it. Where possible, links are provided to works that are freely available on the Internet, including e-prints […]
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B – UNESCO Publication guidelines2 September 2009UNESCO Publication guidelines, 2009 http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0018/001816/181619e.pdf Among many existing guidelines to publication, these ones have been created as a handbook for UNESCO staff, but are free for all online. They provide information on what constitutes a UNESCO publication, how to plan the project, and how best to undertake its production. They are useful also outside the […]
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B – Scientific Publishing Standards26 August 2009Alberts B. Scientific Publishing Standards Science 2008(321)5894: 1271 DOI: 10.1126/science.1165268 http://www.scienceonline.org/cgi/content/full/321/5894/1271 An editorial by the editor in chief of Science, reporting how scientists have the absolute obligation to honesty and commenting on the necessity to guarantee clear, truthful presentations of data, results, and methods which are essential for enabling the findings of one scientist to […]
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B – Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses: The PRISMA Statement24 August 2009Moher D, Liberati A, Tetzlaff J, Altman DG, 2009 Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses: The PRISMA Statement. PLoS Med 6(7): e1000097. doi:10.1371/journal.pmed.1000097 http://www.plosmedicine.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pmed.1000097 The PRISMA Statement (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic reviews and Meta-Analyses) is a new revised guideline for reporting systematic reviews and meta-analyses http://www.prisma-statement.org/. PRISMA should supersede the existing QUOROM […]
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B – Publishing before the thesis: 58 postgraduate views17 August 2009Hartley J, Betts L. Higher Education Review 2009; 41(3):29-44 In this study a draft questionnaire – later defined and assessed in its final form – was submitted to various postgraduate students (English, American, Australian). “Publishing before or after completing the thesis” (http://www.parint.org/isajewebsite/isajebook/isajewebbook.htm) not only shows the importance it plays such an exercise for postgraduate students […]
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B – Better Read That Again: Web Hoaxes and Misinformation17 August 2009Piper PS. Better Read That Again: Web Hoaxes and Misinformation. Searcher 2000; Vol.8 (8) http://www.infotoday.com/searcher/sep00/piper.htm A good guide into the world wide web internet hoax sites (that doesn’t sound published in the year 2000) by a Librarian from Western Washington University entitled: “Better Read That Again: Web Hoaxes and Misinformation” that deals with “lack of […]
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B – Opening up public health: a strategy of information and5 August 2009Reidpath D, Allotey P. Opening up public health: a strategy of information andcommunication technology to support population health. Lancet 2009 (243) 21: 1050-51 doi:10.1016/S0140-6736(09)60315-9 Information saves lives because it is fundamental to public health practice. But, today, the volume and complexity of knowledge and information have outstripped the capacity of health systems to function at […]
